


A Fishy Tale

by Alchemine



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: Bubble Bath, F/F, I doubt anyone will be interested in this but i finished it so here it is, Starbroom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 09:18:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15336723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alchemine/pseuds/Alchemine
Summary: While keeping Hecate company during her nightly bath, Dimity tells her about a long-ago encounter with a mermaid.





	A Fishy Tale

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this Tumblr post](http://http://alchemine.tumblr.com/post/175244385804/1-3-7-for-your-fave-hb-ship).

“All right, you can come in.”

Dimity put her head round the door and found Hecate already in the bath, with lit candles casting long, wavering shadows like watchful ghosts on the high bathroom walls. Only Hecate could take a girly, floral-scented evening soak and give it a Gothic vibe, she thought, coming the rest of the way in and taking up her usual spot on the floor, where Hecate had laid down a folded towel for her. She wasn’t exactly lacking in the backside department, but no amount of natural cushioning was enough to offset sitting on a tiled floor for as long as it took Hecate to bathe.

“Thanks,” she said, making herself comfortable. “So, here we are again, hey?”

“You don’t have to sit here every night.”

“I do if I ever want to have a proper conversation with you.. During the day there are kids underfoot from dawn to dusk, and at night you’re in here trying to set some sort of world record for washing. Or maybe just proving to yourself that witches don’t really melt if they get wet.”

“Tch,” Hecate said in reproving tones. She stretched out a long, thin arm toward the candlelight and watched water and bubbles run off it. “You should try a bath sometime. You might like it.”

“I like showers,” Dimity said, reaching over to trail her fingers in the bathwater. “Showers are refreshing. And lots faster.” She let her hand dip a little under the water’s surface, and Hecate captured it deftly and replaced it, dripping, on the rim of the bath.

“Bathing is not about efficiency,” Hecate informed her. “Bathing is for relaxation. Not everyone unwinds after a long day by running a marathon.”

Dimity laughed. “It wasn’t a marathon. Only a 5k.”

“Any amount of running is too much.” Hecate closed her eyes and slid lower, loose hair swirling round her in an inky cloud. “Put a few more bubbles in, will you? The lavender and rosemary ones.”

“Your wish is my command, HB.” Dimity knelt up and reached across the bath to retrieve the cut-glass bottle, then poured in a hefty dose, turned on the tap, and watched the bubbles foam. All that hair didn’t cover half as much as Hecate imagined it did, she thought, and smiled to herself.

“What are you smiling at?” Hecate had opened her eyes and was peering up suspiciously, as if she thought she were being made fun of, which being Hecate, she probably did. 

“Just thinking you remind me of someone I met once,” Dimity said, shutting off the tap and sitting down on her towel again with a thump. “It’s the setting, I suppose.”  

“I remind you of someone you met in a bathroom?” Hecate raised a sleek dark eyebrow at her.

“Of course not in a bathroom. Have you got enough bubbles now?”

“Yes,” Hecate said, smoothing them over the top of herself like a blanket until just the glistening wet points of her knees were visible. “And don’t think you’re going to escape telling me the rest of this story that easily. Who was this person I remind you of?”

“You’ll think it’s ridiculous.”

“Well, you won’t know until you tell me, will you?”

“All right,” Dimity said “it was a mermaid.”

“You’re right. I do think it’s ridiculous.”

“Told you.”

The bathroom was quiet for a bit, with a heavy silence interrupted only by the echoing drip of water from the tap and an occasional soft splash, and then Hecate said, “Mermaids are extinct. Two hundred years ago, perhaps, but…”

“Yes, I know,” Dimity said. “I was taught that at school, just the way you were. But this wasn’t two hundred years ago, it was twenty years ago. In Cornwall.”

“I don’t suppose you saw a ghostly pirate ship sailing up the coast as well.” Hecate’s voice was wry.

“No, just the mermaid,” Dimity said. “I was there on holiday with my family, and one day my sister and I found a sort of pool surrounded by high rocks, down at the shore. At first we were going to swim in it, but we dropped stones in first, to see how deep it was, and decided we’d best not.”

“Commendable judgement for a pair of small children.”

“We weren’t that small. I was almost thirteen and Dahlia was ten. Do you want me to scrub your back for you?”

“No,” Hecate said, “I want you to finish telling me your almost certainly made-up story.”

Dimity shrugged. “We played on the beach all morning, and then in the afternoon it rained and our parents kept us in, and we did other things instead and forgot about it. But the next morning, I woke up early, hours before anyone else, and I remembered the pool and wanted to see it again. So I took my broomstick, to be quicker, and I flew down the cliff path and found the spot.”

“And you saw a mermaid,” Hecate said, clearly not believing it.

“Not straight away,” Dimity said. “The water in the pool was higher than it had been, because the tide was coming in, and at first all I saw was the sun sparkling on it. It had been a sort of dull grey-green before, under a cloudy sky. I leaned my broom against a rock and went a bit closer, and then just like that, a lady popped up out of the water--not all the way, only her head and shoulders. She had long black hair like yours, spread out and floating around her, and it was all wet and wriggly and _alive_ , like tentacles, or like seaweed.”

Hecate’s hand crept up to touch her own hair, as if in wonder, and then she seemed to realise what she was doing and snatched the hand away. “That doesn’t mean she was a mermaid. She might just have been an ordinary woman out for a swim.”  

“That’s what I thought as well. So I said to her, ‘The water’s awfully deep, miss. You ought to be careful,’” and she smiled and said, in the sweetest voice I’d ever heard, that it was all right because she was a good swimmer. And I said that my sister and I were good swimmers too, but it was too deep for us.

“Not too deep for me,’ she said, and then she flipped over in a flash and dived under the water, and that’s when I saw her tail. It was like a fish’s tail, all red and blue and silver scales, and it glimmered even brighter than the sun on the water. I saw it just for a moment, and then a huge fan of water splashed up out of the pool and soaked me from top to toe.”

At that, Hecate sat right up in the bath, heedless of exposure, and locked her arms round her bent knees. “What then?”

“Then I screamed like a banshee because it was ice-cold and there was salt in my eyes,” Dimity said, laughing, “and I grabbed my broomstick and flew back to the cottage we were staying in as quick as I could.”

“And told no one?”

“Of course not. If I’d told my parents, I would have been in trouble for going down to the water on my own, and my sister never could keep a secret--still can’t, actually; she ruined our dad’s surprise birthday party last year--so I couldn’t tell her either. And anyway, it was the sort of thing you had to see to believe.”

“I suppose it must have been,” Hecate said. She settled back in her bath, where the bubbles were beginning to sizzle and dissolve. “But you’ve never forgotten.”

“Never.”

“You had a lucky escape,” Hecate observed. “If it really had been a mermaid, she might have dragged you into the water with her and kept you there forever.”

“I might not have minded,” Dimity said. “She was beautiful. Just like you.”

Hecate made an exasperated noise and splashed a little bathwater at her with the side of one hand. “Stop. I’m not beautiful and I’m certainly not a mermaid.”

“Well, you’re probably not a mermaid,” Dimity said, “and that’s all I’m agreeing to.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hecate said testily. “I hate it when you make fun of me.”

“Well, I hate it when you behave as if every compliment is an insult.” Dimity stood up, hands on hips. “If you’re going to be that way, I’ll just go, and you can come and find me after you’ve finished turning yourself into a prune. If you want to.”

“Fine,” Hecate said, and drawing a long breath, sank down to disappear under the water, leaving nothing but drifting seaweed strands of hair on the surface.

Dimity stood and watched until it became clear that Hecate was using magic to breathe and could stay down indefinitely, and then rolled her eyes--impossible woman!--and turned to leave. She hadn’t even taken a step before she heard the splash of a body surfacing behind her, just as she had all those years ago.

“Come here,” Hecate said. It was the harsh, commanding tone she used with the girls, and Dimity found herself obeying before she knew what she was doing. It was galling that Hecate could have such an effect on her, but there didn't seem to be anything she could do about it. 

"What?"

“Closer.”

Dimity bent over so she and Hecate were nearly nose to dripping nose. "Why?" 

"Perhaps I am a mermaid after all," Hecate said, and Dimity shrieked as bare wet arms wound around her neck and pulled her headfirst into the bath. 

 


End file.
